


Seventh Inning Stretch

by crossingwinter



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sports, F/M, The Sports AU that no one asked for, alas rating is mostly for language, basically 14000 words of Jaime angsting on a baseball diamond, but if i do say so myself, do people even rate that way anymore?, in the game of baseball you win or you die, the outlining process for this fic was intense let me just say, the sports AU this fandom deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 07:54:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/976315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are only two games: life, and baseball.  And at the moment, he's losing at both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seventh Inning Stretch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theelusiveflamingo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theelusiveflamingo/gifts).



“Welcome to the 2013 World Series.  Game seven tonight between the Chicago White Sox and the Philadelphia Phillies.  This game brought to you by Coca Cola.”

“All American Drink for an All American Pastime.”

“Tonight’s game may make history with the Phillies coming back after being down three to win the series.  This has only ever happened once before, with the Boston Red Sox coming back from behind in 2004 to beat the Cardinals in a spectacular upset that ended the eighty six year run of the Curse of the Bambino.  What do you think, Varys.  Is a win possible tonight for the Phillies?”

“I dunno, Mance.  They are certainly on a roll, I will say.  And you’ve seen as clearly as I have that Chicago’s been falling apart this week.  They had a great first three games, and it looked as though they were going to sweep the series, but the personal blow’s clearly shaken the team’s ethos.”

“You’re referring here to Elia?”

“I am.  That’s Rhaegar Targaryen’s wife, who was just diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  Targaryen, of course, is still playing the series, saying that his wife wanted him to, but you can see the way that the news has hit the team.  It’s not the same team who started last Wednesday, I can tell you.”

* * *

Jaime holds his cap over his heart and listens to Brandon Flowers sing the National Anthem.  He tries to ignore the voice.  (“How have you never heard them?  They’re incredible.  Here.  Listen,” and she’d put her big headphones over his ears and watched him listen to a song he’d heard on the radio before, watched intently, like her life had depended on it.)  He tries to keep his mind blank because the only way he’s gotten through the past few days has been keeping his mind blank.

It’s why he’s liked baseball so much.  You don’t have to think, you don’t have to strategize—you just play.

Anthem over, Mayor Rosby throws the out the first pitch.  He lands the ball too soon, and Barristan has to scoot forward to catch it on the edge of his mitt.  The crowd roars and it’s time.

He crosses the diamond to his short stop, the dirt brushed smooth, cleaning the scuffs from last night’s catastrophe, washing away footsteps and knee marks and leaving only the little grooves of brush marks.

He kicks at the dirt, hops up and down, feeling his muscles move, warm and ready for everything.  The crowd cheers as Dontos Hollard approaches the plate and Jaime grits his teeth.  Jon throws the first pitch and Hollard swings and misses.

It’s started. 

He hears the thought in Addam’s voice and his teeth hurt from the added bite he gives to them.  _No_ , he thinks, _No.  Not now.  It’s all a mistake anyway.  Father will sort it out._ Honestly, who could suspect Addam of insider trading?  The man was stupid, but he wasn’t that stupid.

Jaime’s legs dropped as Victarion Greyjoy hits a ball but it runs foul and he relaxes again, eyes on Barristan.  _Watch Barristan.  You can’t do anything for Addam now.  Keep your eye on the damn ball, Lannister_.

But it was no use.  As Jon struck out Greyjoy and moved on to Frey, he tried to get thoughts of Addam out of his head.  But he couldn’t. “Look.  I don’t understand what’s going on, but they’re keeping me here.”

“I’ll come bail you out.”

“No.  I’m not that important.”  Addam had been using his stern voice, the you’re-being-impulsive voice that Jaime hated so much and that somehow everyone seemed to have (except her).  “It’ll take you at least a day to get me out and you’d miss the game and you are _not_ missing game seven of your first World Series for me.”

“As if we’re going to win it.”

“If you think like that, you’ve already lost.  You know that.”  (She’d had said something similar.  “Don’t think like a loser, you big twit.  And don’t think about all this,” she had waved her hands, “until it’s over, ok?  Or I’m not talking to you ever again.”)

Jon struck out Tarbeck and Jaime moved towards the dugout.

“Nice round,” Gerry grunted to Jon who nodded, stretching his shoulder. 

  _How long before we fuck it up?_ thought Jaime.

* * *

“And that was a fast half.”

“I’m sure Targaryen’s hoping her team will remember how to play after Connington’s no-hitter on Friday.”

“It was a really fantastic game.  Probably one of the best matches I’ve seen this decade.”

“We’re still pretty early in the decade there, Varys.”

“The MLB’s going to have some trouble topping Connington’s no-hitter coupled with Dayne’s Grand Slam _and_ his three-run homer.  I don’t know if it can be done, honestly.”

“Well, you don’t get a hitter like Dayne every year.”

“You don’t get a hitter like Dayne every _century_.”

* * *

Jon-O Darry strikes out.

So does Rhaegar.  Rhaegar hasn’t hit a pitch since the news about Elia.  Not even a foul tip.

Tarly’s curveball goes awry and hits Oz in the leg.

“At least we got a man on,” mutters Barristan.

“Like it’ll last,” Jon replies.

Jon’s right.  Arthur strikes out swinging.

* * *

“Another fast half.”

“Neither Merryweather nor Hornwood is taking this round for granted.  They’ve got their stellar pitchers on the mound right now.  I’d wager that the first few innings will go fast.  The game’ll get interesting once Connington and Tarly begin to tire out a little bit.”

“That seems a little hasty, wouldn’t you say?  It’s only the first inning.  Who knows what’ll happen next.”

“Well, if Arthur Dayne isn’t at least going to get on base at his first at bat…”

“Yeah, we’ll see, I suppose.”

* * *

Mallister hits Jon’s first pitch—a smooth line drive to right field.  When Rhaegar plucks it out of the air—easily thank god, no more easy fumbles tonight—not tonight please Rhaegar, Jaime sees them, sitting in the front row, cans in paper bags and he frowns.

He’d asked her, _begged_ her not to let Tyrion near alcohol.  He’s so young, and it goes through his small body so quickly, and Jaime had spent most of the night-before-last cleaning sick off of his floor from where Tyrion had puked when they’d gotten home from the airport.  But there they are, both red cheeked and glassy eyed and watching him watch them.  He imagines that he sees Cersei grimace as she slips her can away from the railing and out of sight, but honestly he’s too far away to tell.

It’s probably wishful thinking, he decides, one eye on Mallister, who has a modest lead off of first, the other on Jon, who’s winding up and slices the ball past Bracken.  He knows that Cersei drinks.  She started drinking in High School.  It was one of those things he had found depressing about her relationship with Robert.  Robert could drink and drink and drink and not even be buzzed, so he did drink and drink and drink.  And Cersei, in love for the first time, or whatever it was that she was with Robert, drank and drank and drank.  She’d sometimes try and convince him to drink too, but he found he didn’t feel as good in practice the next day when he drank.  He knew that it might all be in his head (his head definitely felt fuzzy after a drink) but if it had anything to do with how quickly he ran he wasn’t going near it.  Not if he actually wanted to make it to the Big Leagues.

Maybe now that she and Robert had broken up, she’d drink less?  He hoped so.  He didn’t like Cersei when she drank.  She ended up saying things more cruelly than she wanted to, and it had always made him uncomfortable.  Not because he felt uncomfortable for himself, but because he knew that it made other people shy away from her, the morons who thought that just because someone says something bitchily that they are in fact a bitch.  He knew that that was what Melara Heatherspoon thought of her, he catches Bracken’s drive and tosses it lightly to Arthur so that Mallister can’t proceed, but fuck Melara Heatherspoon.  Fuck Melara Heatherspoon and her lying lies.  From what Cersei said anyway.  He’d never met her before, he’d heard Cersei rant about her, and he knew better than to try and like someone Cersei hated.  It didn’t work that way.

It never had.  The only time it might arguably work was with Tyrion, and really, that was more a matter of him loving Tyrion more than Cersei did.  But Cersei just didn’t know how to communicate with Tyrion.  She didn’t like it when she had to share the floor, and Jaime had always been good at backing down for her.  Tyrion never did though.  Maybe it was a good thing that they were sitting there, drinking together, even though he was still in high school for fuck’s sake.  Maybe they’d bond and Jaime wouldn’t have to mediate between them anymore.

Then, of course dad would be fucked between them, if they ever set their sights on letting him know exactly what they thought of him, but dad needed to get the fuck over himself anyway. Reyne strikes out, Mallister’s still hanging around on first.

Japan?  Honestly. 

Tywin Lannister could and would do anything, just out of spite, and it had been fucking impossible getting those motherfucking tickets and he was on the fucking team. 

And when had he started cursing all the damn time?  Even in his thoughts.  He certainly hadn’t cursed this much when he’d been in high school—probably because dad had thrown a fucking shitfit every time any of them had said anything even remotely construable as filthy.

It was Ly—Westerling strikes out and he crosses the diamond once again, taking a bat from Pod to begin his practice swings.

* * *

“You know, I’m not one to harp on about form, but did you see how high Lannister jumped for that line drive?”

“It was pretty incredible.”

“He looked like a superhero or something.  It was crazy.  Must have jumped what—four feet?”

“I don’t think that it was quite that much.  What I thought was really impressive was that he passed it so precisely in midair.  It’s hard to get that kind of precision when you’re not grounded, but he just threw it like it was nothing.  The torque he got out of his body is almost impossible to describe.”

“Lannister is, of course, always a joy to watch.”

“Definitely, Mance.  But that was, if I may say, a little more so than usual tonight.”

* * *

There’s nothing quite like feeling a bat in your hand.  Nothing quite like the precise swings that send a sharp crack up your arm as you throw the bat aside and sprint for first.

Jaime’s always been glad he’s not a lefty, because having to turn and sprint would probably be too much.  That said, it’s something that Lew’s been good at, except when he strikes out, as he just did.  Jaime passes him, and Lew spits bitterly on the ground.  “He’s got a mean curve,” Lew says, and Jaime grunts in response. 

Jaime lines up in the batter’s box and crouches, waiting.  Randyll Tarly is an ugly man, he decides, and his nose looks a little too much like Robert’s, which is enough to make Jaime hate the man, even though he’s actually met him and liked him well enough. But the way that Robert treated his sister was enough to make any man want to hit things the way that Jaime hit the ball just past Mallister’s outstretched arm.  The ump waves his arms and Jaime’s safe at first and the cheers are deafening and he steps off the base, leading, watching heart pumping hard as if to remind him that he should be thinking about baseball, the series, the game, the inning, the pitch that Tarly sends past Gerry and not how he’d like to break Robert fucking Baratheon’s stupid fucking face for cheating on his sister.

He was on base—the first Sock on base in the inning and he needed, _needed_ to get past first.  It was more important than anything else, more important than anger, more important than disappointment, more important than the goddamn rent check he had missed because he’d been on the road and which Walder Frey had just happened to bring up the night after Brienne was in the hospital, and he was an asshole about getting his checks in on time and usually Brienne would have just paid for them both and Jaime would have paid her back but not this time.  This time, Walder hadn’t gotten anything and he was fucking pissed and threatening to kick them out of their apartment—as if everything else that was going on in his life wasn’t enough.  Let’s just add on one more thing, see how much you can take, the universe seemed to be saying.

But that would wait.  And if Frey kicked him and Brienne out, good riddance because he was a fucking awful landlord and they could do better and, after tonight—Jaime’s stomach lurched at the thought—he’d have plenty of time to find a new place.

The off-season.  He hadn’t thought about it seriously because they were always going to win the conference and they were always going to make it to the Series and they were always going to win the Series, because after their season how could they not.  He’d always imagined the off-season as fucking cold, and fucking full of snow, like when he’d moved here in January at the start of his contract, and come the fuck on, Gerry don’t strike out, come on, but starting tomorrow, he would be free until Spring Training.

That was a weird thought.  What was he going to do with all that time?  Apart from bail Addam out of jail of course, because like hell was he not on a plane to Boston after the game tonight. 

The fleeting thought of Lyanna in her big ratty blue hat and her pashmina scarf laughing at him as she threw snow in his face made the knot in his stomach tighten.  (“And don’t think about all this until it’s over or I’m not talking to you.”)

She would fucking tell him not to fucking think about it.

And, as Reyne shot him a look moving towards the dugout, he realized that she’d been right.

Barristan had struck out, the inning was over, and he hadn’t moved.

* * *

“You know, I think that Jaime Lannister’s earned his paycheck tonight.”

“He sure has there, Varys.  That was quite the hit he had.”

“Nice for the Sox fans to even get a hit in, especially after last night’s game.”

“Yep. I think that that match will go down in history as one of the most painful to watch of all time.  But maybe they’re turning around.”

“Imagine if Tywin Lannister had got him for the Red Sox.  Then the White Sox wouldn’t have any hope at all.”

“They’ve got plenty of hope.  Look who’s starting them off next inning.  They’ve got Tully on deck.”

* * *

The problem with Lyanna had always been that once she cropped up in his head, he had a job getting the thought of her to go elsewhere.  Images of her wrapped in her parka filled his head as Royce made it to first; the horrible part of him that always wanted to see her _not_ in her parka dug up that image from the he couldn’t remember what party she’d dragged him to in February, when she’d ended up falling-down drunk and wearing only her bra and underwear and he’d had to figure out how to get her home because he sure as fuck didn’t trust the drunk guys at the party to do it and god fucking dammit, Rhaegar, Jon-O was on that ball and now Royce’s on third and if Greyjoy gets a piece of Jon they’ll fall into the same fucking spiral they were in last night.  Lyanna’s grey eyes had been glazed over as she slurred at him from the passenger seat of his car “yooower a niccce guy, Jaaay-me,” and he’d had to drive slowly because of all the snow and he’d glance over to make sure she was still awake and he wouldn’t have to take her to the hospital, but she was only in a bra and her tits were the size of baseballs and he knew exactly what they’d feel like in his hand, like Greyjoy’s chopper that he threw to first before Greyjoy—a great lumbering man—reached Oz, only softer, warmer. 

Lyanna had once joked, sober this time, that baseball ran in her blood and so it only made sense that her tits were the size of baseballs.  He’d asked what she’d meant, because her father had only bought the Yankees when he was in High School, and she’d just laughed and said that it took more than owning a team to have baseball in your blood.  And if that weren’t the fucking truth, Jaime didn’t know what was.  His dad sure as fuck didn’t have baseball in his blood.  That wasn’t why he’d bought the Red Sox.  If Rickard Stark bought the Yankees, and Aerys and Rhaella Targaryen owned the White Sox, Tywin Lannister wasn’t going to be outdone like that and he bought the Red Sox as Jaime went into his senior year and college and Major League scouts started showing up to his games with talks of scholarships and contracts.

Frey’s line drive goes over Arthur’s glove and Jaime sees that Royce is going to make it home.  Frey rounds first and heads to second, then doubles back and Oz tags him out, thank god.

His dad had smirked at these scouts, knowing that if he owned the Red Sox, his son was going to sign with them.  How would he not?  The Red Sox were an old team, with a strong fanbase, and in Jaime’s hometown—well, nearly, since he lived in Cambridge, but it wasn’t far to Fenway from their house—and Jaime showed enough promise that even if it looked like nepotism, the fans would get over it once he’d made some snazzy save or something, or once he’d driven in the winning run.  And of course, that was enough to make Jaime a little nervous when his dad handed him a contract for twice the amount of money that Rhaella Targaryen had.

“It’s not about money, of course,” dad had said.  “You’re my son.”

Jaime still remembered the drop in his stomach when he’d seen the contract and somehow he couldn’t bring himself to sign it.  He’d signed Rhaella’s instead and sent it off secretly and when his dad asked him why he hadn’t signed he’d said that he’d gotten the contract too late and had already signed for the White Sox.  He had never been more scared of his father, and had never been so glad that he had to go to school.

* * *

“And that’s the third strike, sending the Phillies back into the field and letting the White Sox have a crack at catching up on the one-nothing lead that Philadelphia has going on.”

“Connington’s been putting in quite a show.  And the game’s only getting started.  Let’s see what the Sox have for us this inning.”

* * *

Nobody’s looking at Rhaegar when they reach the dugout.  He’s sitting at the end of the bench, eyes on the yellow foul pole, his jaw clenched.  He strikes an impressive figure, even when angry with himself, even when disappointed in the game.  Jaime does his best not to watch him.  He knows that that will make Rhaegar even more surly, even more moody, and that’s not what the team wants.  While Rhaegar is perhaps not one to smile, or jocularly joke throughout the game like Brynden, a surly Rhaegar brings them down like lead. 

His hair’s getting long, and he imagines Cersei, in her drunken state, imagining running her hands through it.  She’d joked to him when he’d first joined the White Sox that she’d happily fuck Rhaegar senseless, not understanding when Jaime hadn’t laughed.  Jaime always laughed when Cersei said things like that.  Usually, to be fair, he found it funny.  He liked the idea of Cersei having fun, of Cersei in love, of Cersei happy, because somewhere down the line, Cersei had stopped being happy with Robert.  But if she fucked Rhaegar senseless, that meant that Rhaegar wasn’t being faithful to Elia, and the idea of a sad, broken, dejected Elia was even worse than the concept of losing this game.

Elia, whose quiet smile and words of encouragement made them all feel better, even after bad games.  Elia, who was the only person who could make Rhaegar’s constantly distant eyes soften.  Elia, who always had Advil in her purse, who knew the best restaurants in Chicago (Jaime still wasn’t over Khan’s BBQ), and who made the teams homemade brownies (none of this Betty Crocker bullshit.  Real homemade brownies with real chocolate) to welcome them back from away series.  And Elia might be gone. The very idea of losing Elia had shattered this team so completely that even though Brynden was now on first and Jon-O’s hit looked like it may well send him as far as third, Jaime didn’t think that any of them felt any hope, especially not when Rhaegar was heading up to bat and Rhaegar was too much in his head to even hit properly right now.

Jaime almost laughed.  Rhaegar was too much in his head.  What the fuck was he?  He was barely watching the game.  He was thinking too much about Lyanna’s tits, and breaking Robert Baratheon’s fucking face, and the fact that his dad had flown to Japan, _on purpose_ , so that he didn’t have to come to Jaime’s game and the time zone would be so different that he wouldn’t be able to go to some sports bar in Tokyo and watch him because the Japanese love baseball and would probably be showing the World Series _somewhere_.

Fucking asshole.

He’d said he bought the Red Sox for Jaime.  That’s not a good reason to buy a team.  You buy a team because you want a team, because you and your family breathe baseball and your daughter wears retro Yankee t-shirts and sweatpants when she’s studying for finals because they give her luck, not because you want to make sure your son who’s as good as failed out of school the chance to be successful and pawn the team off to your little brother to run so you can go back to focusing on making your millions in the fucking hotel industry. 

(Rhaegar struck out.  Big surprise. Oz’s turn.)

He remembered right after he’d moved out to Chicago, he and Arthur and Gerry had gone out for dinner and at some point, Arthur had said something like “Play because you want to play.  Play because you like who you’re playing for, and who you’re playing with.”  It was easy for him to say.  He was Arthur Dayne.  He could do whatever the fuck he wanted.  But truth be told Jaime liked who he was playing with—even if Barristan’s knees were maybe a little too old for catcher, and even if Gerry was fucking gruff all the time, and Merryweather was incompetent.  Arthur, Rhaegar, Jon-O, Oz, Lew—they were like brothers to him.  Not the kind of brother Tyrion was.  A different kind of brother.  A baseball brother.  (Yes, it sounded corny even to him.)

Arthur’s hit got Brynden out, and Jaime knows he won’t get to hit that inning.  Great.  Now he really has nothing to distract him from the fact that his father is an asshole, his siblings are falling apart and Lyanna…

Lyanna would probably want to run her hands through Rhaegar’s too-long hair too.  He kicks the wall in front of him, and a sharp jolt runs up his leg.  Gerry thinks it’s because Lew didn’t make it to second and now they have to get up again.

* * *

“Well, the Sox are definitely showing signs of life.”

“Absolutely.  Tully, Darry, and Dayne all made it onto base.”

“Rhaegar Targaryen, of course, still not hitting a ball.”

“His mind is clearly elsewhere.  I’m surprised they haven’t taken him out.”

“I suppose that’s what happens when your father owns the team.”

“Even if it’s your mother running it.  And honestly, Rhaella Targaryen must be pouring herself a nice cold one right now.  She put together one of the strongest lines Chicago’s had in years—”

“Even signed Dayne off the Yankees.”

“Exactly.  And now they’re about to throw the series.  And her daughter-in-law’s sick.  And her husband’s still in the hospital.  If anyone deserves a stiff fifth, it’s Rhaella Targaryen.”

“And of course, you know that Rickard Stark’s going to descend upon Dayne when the season’s over and try to get him back.”

* * *

What is it about girls and Rhaegar Targaryen?  Can’t they see he’s married?  And that he loves his wife?  And that he has two children with her?  And that those children are fucking adorable?

Rhaegar had brought Rhaenys to practice a couple of weeks ago—right before the playoffs—and she’d been wearing a Targaryen White Sox t-shirt that was much too big for her, and they’d all taken pictures with her wearing a batter’s helmet while Elia stood there smiling with baby Aegon in her arms.  There had been dark circles under her eyes, and every now and then Rhaegar would look over at her and there would be a crease between his eyebrows.  Rhaenys had a way with the team—there was something about her that made them all want to have daughters, Jon-O had joked.  A giggling little girl with dark brown hair who scampered around the diamond while Merryweather tried to get their attention back to the playoffs.

They had been in it to win it, then, and whatever the fuck Merryweather came up with wasn’t going to detract from the fact that they were going to _win_.  Jon would strike everyone out, like he was striking out Mallister, and the championship would be theirs and Arthur could tell the Yankees to fuck off because he wanted to play with his childhood friend, and Jaime could say “Look, dad.  I made the right choice for my career.  And aren’t you always saying I should think about my future?”

It was all he’d ever been able to say, really.  Even when Jaime was a little kid, struggling to read because the letters kept making different words than the ones that Cersei saw—Tywin had made him sit down and _learn_ because think of your _future_ and how hard it will be to be successful if you can’t _read_.

Well, Jaime still had trouble reading, and didn’t whenever he could, but he was making many millions of dollars all on his own because he was never going to be able to use his brain to make money, and Jon what are you doing, walking Bracken like that?  Tyrion would become a billionaire just by being brilliant.  Or he’d be some celeb-professor like the people Lyanna was always talking about.  But more likely he’d end up some New York hot-shot lawyer with a sexy-as-fuck car to compensate for his dwarfism and some brilliantly intelligent and beautiful and independent wife.  He liked the idea of Tyrion being super-successful, given all the shit he’s been through, all the shit dad’s put him through.

Jaime still didn’t know what to make of what had happened with Tysha.  Tyrion hadn’t told him everything, and dad wasn’t talking, and Cersei had called him from Georgetown to say that something was going down and to try and figure it out with him.  He’d spent four hours on the phone with her, but Tyrion was too upset to share details and when Tywin Lannister didn’t want to share information, you couldn’t get it out of him even if you begged, argued, or blackmailed.  Reyne knocks the ball deep into center field and for a moment Jaime sees fear in Jon’s face.  Then relief because it didn’t quite make the stands, then fear again because Bracken is tearing around third and there’s no way that Lew will get the ball in time to prevent the run.  He sends the ball to Gerry though, halting Reyne at second and Jaime sees rather than hears Jon’s “fuck” over the roar of the Phillies fans.

Jaime doesn’t look over at Arthur, whose attention, he does not doubt, is fully on Reyne.  He does cast a glance at Gerry before he backs up a little bit so that his heels are in the grass and he watches Jon wind up and send a strike past Westerling, then another, then another.  Jon’s first pitch to Royce goes right to him and it’s in and out of his hands and into Arthur’s before he realizes it.  He blinks as Arthur calls to him “You’re on it tonight, aren’t you?”

Is he?  Is he on it?

He’s only ever really been “on it” once—and that was back in high school, when he caught everything that came his way and scored three times in one game.  Here he often feels like the baby of the team, surrounded by old and famous players like Gerold Hightower and Barristan Selmy—not to mention hall-of-famers-to-be like Rhaegar and Arthur. 

But Arthur’s nodding to him, and Gerry, who has heard the comment seems to perk up slightly—even from his dour mood, and Jaime begins to wonder if it might matter after all.  For fuck’s sake, he can’t keep his head in the game, but Arthur and Gerry are sharing looks that make it him feel as though he’s the only one with his head in the game and that just plain isn’t right.  Or maybe it is?  Does he have his head in the game by squarely _not_ having his head in the game?  Did it work that way?  Sports psychologists said that it did.  Maybe all the shit in his life was helping him attain the much desired “flow”.  Does his life need to go to shit for him to play an excellent game of baseball?  Is he playing an excellent game of baseball?  Because that would be great.  But if he thinks about it, his head won’t be in the game anymore.  Or will it?  Now he’s confused.

And it doesn’t matter because Hollard’s out at first and they head into the dugout.

* * *

“Connington’s beginning to get a little tired.”

“He’s been throwing hard this game.  His fastballs have been in the high nineties.  It doesn’t surprise me that he’s beginning to burn out.”

“Especially after he’s given up hope of having as good a game as in game one.”

“All the same, the Sox are only down two now.  It’s not as if they’re a lost cause.”

“Not at all.  It’s just going to be a very different game when Connington’s not on the mound anymore.”

* * *

Jaime misses the first pitch, but sends the second one into shallow left field.  He reaches first nice and safely, and leads off base, eyes on Tarly.  He decides through Tarly’s first pitch to Gerry that he’s going to steal second—mostly because he didn’t get beyond first last time—and before the second pitch is out of Tarly’s glove, he does.  

 _There you go_ , he thought.  _Nice and impulsive does the trick_.  He’s not smiling, but he’s not frowning.  The thought makes him think of Lyanna—who always said that the reason they got on so well was that they were exactly the same: impulsive to the bone on most things because waiting for other people to get their shit done so they could be reasonable was never that appealing.  And stealing second didn’t matter in the slightest.  That was just for fun.

He’d be grinning and thoroughly pleased with himself if his view from second base didn’t make him look directly at Cersei and Tyrion, both of whose cheeks are bright red and who are cheering as loudly as the rest of the stadium.  He hopes to god that Tyrion’s stopped drinking, because he can already see from the way his little brother’s raising his arms that he’s more than drunk enough to be in serious trouble later.  He wishes Brienne were there with them.  She’d at least be able to temper them.  He could have trusted her not to let Tyrion near beer—considering the fact that he’s fast turning into an alcoholic and he’s only a sophomore in high school.  But of course, he can’t quite blame her.

He’d been in New York when it had happened—staying in Lyanna’s dad’s apartment because Lyanna had insisted that her dad put Jaime up even though he owned the Yankees, and even though the White Sox were paying for Jaime’s hotel room and it would be a _very nice_ hotel room.  It had been jarring to get a phone call from Brienne in the hospital, saying that she was all right, and that he should not worry, but that he should know that she’d been mugged and beaten up just outside of campus the other night.  Of course she didn’t feel like going out right now, especially not at night.  But he still wished she were there, to roll her eyes in that I’m-not-saying-how-much-I’m-judging-your-life-choices sort of way whenever Cersei took a sip of her beer, to explain some of the finer points of baseball to Tyrion, who, despite having learned everything Jaime could teach him, hadn’t really retained everything of import. 

He doesn’t even bother to leave base because Tarly’s right under Gerry’s pop fly.  Gerry doesn’t even bother to go to first because he knows that Tarly will pluck the ball out of the air like an overripe apple.

He wonders if it was still apple season.  He knows it might be, if they were back east, but he is still not entirely sure how weather worked in the Midwest, and from what he could gather, Chicago has different weather from everywhere else.  At least to hear the Chicagoans talk about it.  Maybe when he and Lyanna talked again, they could do it in an apple orchard.  He likes apple picking.  He likes climbing into the trees (even though you weren’t supposed to) and finding the right apples and throwing them precisely down to Tyrion, who would catch them and be very pleased with himself for doing it.  He likes finding Golden Delicious the color of Cersei’s hair and Granny Smith the color of her eyes.  He wonders if Lyanna had ever been apple picking.  It wouldn’t surprise him if she hadn’t.  She is the kind of person who you had to drag out of New York City kicking and screaming.  Or at least, she had been growing up.  She’d said she was ready to be out when the time for college came and she’d applied to the top schools around the country. (“Everyone assumed I’d go to Harvard when I got in but _fuck the Red Sox_.”)  (She would pick her college based on the local baseball team.)

A wave of despair washes over him that had nothing to do with Barristan striking out and everything to do with the image of Lyanna and him in an orchard and everything continuing to go to shit because nothing would have changed except that Rhaegar’s wife would be closer to death and she wouldn’t know whether to be upset that he was upset or cautiously optimistic that she might have a chance, even if she didn’t because he didn’t notice her at all, because he never noticed anyone.

He starts running, but Brynden doesn’t make it to first and it doesn’t matter.

* * *

“That was some great fieldwork by Tarly in there.  You could really see the support he got from his in field and from Tarbeck.”

“He really is putting in a strong showing tonight.  And considering the last game he pitched was the one where Arthur Dayne hit every pitch, that’s a marked improvement.”

“He, Tarbeck, and Reyne are really moving as a team.  If you look at the way the three of them moved right after Lannister stole second, you’ve got Tarbeck being the eyes and it’s evident that Tarly trusts him one hundred percent.”

* * *

Greyjoy, he decides, looks like what Addam would look like if Addam gained thirty pounds.  Addam has always been fit and lean, with the muscles that came from rowing up and down the Charles River all throughout high school.  But, if he let his diet go, and became less a lean crew man and more a power hitter who didn’t have to run too much—they had the same square jaw and big nose. 

Greyjoy sends a solo shot into the stands—an excellent way to start the inning, Jaime decides, and the Phillies fans go nuts.  They’re up three to one now, and Jaime watches as Merryweather calls a timeout and he moves towards the mound.

Gerry and Rhaegar follow him, because Rhaella Targaryen doesn’t know how to get rid of a shitty manager.  They’ve been dealing with him all season, and by they, Jaime mostly meant Rhaegar and Gerry, because they were the ones who were really doing the running.  It’s probably the least appropriate, professional, effective, or orthodox setup in baseball, Gerry and Rhaegar making all the decisions while Merryweather nods and smiles.  But it’s worked for them, and it’s gotten them this far.

Another reason, Jaime supposes, that they’re shit right now.  One half of their managerial team can’t stop thinking about his dying wife.  And of course, Jaime can’t fault him at all for that—especially not when Jaime can’t stop thinking about Lyanna—it certainly makes sense, now that he thinks about it.

He sees Jon nodding, Gerry looking serious and Merryweather rubbing the creases on either side of his mouth.  Then, Merryweather looks out to the bullpen and taps his arm four times.  _Mace?  You’re playing Mace?  You’ve given up all hope, haven’t you?_   Even playing on an injury, Jeor was better than Mace.  Gerry didn’t look happy when he strode back to third base.

To be fair, Gerry rarely looks happy.  After game one, he’d managed a smile, but by and large, he was the type who was always unimpressed.  At first, Jaime’d thought that he was like Brienne, gruff and defensive but a giant teddy bear.  Then he’d realized that Brienne was more a Doberman and Gerry more an angry bull who has seen red all the time.  He wished that Brienne saw red sometimes.  Like when she was mugged.  She was huge, and he’d been surprised that she was attacked at all, since muggers usually veered away from the people who could kick the shit out of them.  But Brienne carried herself like she came from Idaho, and so whoever had attacked her had seen her as a mark—and he’d been right.

It made him angry.  Who the fuck kicks a woman in the ribs?  Jaime knows that chivalry is anti-feminist (at least, that’s what Lyanna thinks.  He’s still not wholly convinced, but he’s wary now), but he wonders at people some times.  To be fair, if they kicked a man in the ribs—say, Tarbeck, now on first—he’d still wonder at them.  There was never an excuse for being that kind of a jackass, and he’d been tempted, many, many times.  It was hard not to be tempted when your friends were as stubborn as Brienne Tarth and Addam Marbrand.  Usually, he’d laugh them off.  But there were times…Brienne calling Aerys Targaryen a retard, or Addam guffawing that Cersei didn’t get into any of the Ivies she’d been anticipating…well, Jaime isn’t a particularly violent person.  He thinks it comes from whacking balls with sticks pretty regularly.  But he did contemplate hitting each of them.

And no matter how stupid each of them was—Brienne getting herself mugged (he shouldn’t think of that way, he knows.  That’s victim blaming, and he’s heard Lyanna go on enough rants about that to know that he should never do that or else he loses all semblance of a moral high ground, and is also just an asshole), or Addam getting himself arrested—he still would kill to make sure that each of them was ok.  God, he wished they were here right now.  Both of them.  They must each of them be miserable right now.  Addam, in jail, _maybe_ listening over the radio.  At least Brienne can curl up on the couch with ice cream and watch as he catches Mallister’s line drive and pass it to Arthur.

He hopes Brienne is watching.  She’s certainly kept him sane over the past few days—even though she had no reason to apart from that she had nothing else to do.  It was good of her, really, to listen to him rant.  He only wished it had been enough to keep him focused on the game.  But honestly, he was doing fine playing with his mind elsewhere.  Hell, he was playing…really damn well. Maybe he should think about all the problems in his life during baseball more often. He grins as Rhaegar throws the ball to Oz and Bracken’s out at first.  Not that he’s reaching any conclusions he hasn’t reached before, but he imagines he’ll be too burned out to think of about them all when they’ve gone and lost the match.  And since he won’t drink himself into oblivion, at least he only needs to dwell on the fact that they will have lost.

And at no fault of his.

Fucking dad couldn’t even be bothered to show up.

* * *

“And the Phillies are up three to one as we head into the bottom of the fifth.”

“Another run scored by Victarion Greyjoy, a solo shot.”

“A well timed solo-shot as well.  If anything, the Sox are lucky.  It’s evident that Connington is not in the same zone he was in last game, and that he’s beginning to tire.  Maybe Mace Tyrell will pick up nicely where Connington left off before the Phillies’ lead becomes a little too big.”

“Merryweather, of course, is restricted in his pitching at the moment, because of Jeor Mormont’s torn tendon.  Mormont is the better relief pitcher, but Tyrell is all that Merryweather has at the moment.”

“And he certainly isn’t going to go back to Yronwood, not after the fiasco last night.”

* * *

He supposes that it all boils back to dad.  Dad, and never being sure if mom really loved him, and taking that out on the kids, especially after she died because the doctors didn’t fucking realize that the hormones that had helped Tyrion grow in her stomach had also given her kidney cancer and she’d just wasted away in the hospital until the very end and they’d had to do an autopsy to figure out how she’d died because they hadn’t fucking thought to look for cancer.  At least the doctors had fucking found Elia’s cancer.  Not that he could tell Rhaegar that.  That’s not the sort of thing you can tell people.

Dad hadn’t known how to be a dad.  He’d thought that he had.  Maybe even believed that he had.  But it had boiled down to such favoritism that he’d bought Jaime a baseball team when he wouldn’t buy Cersei into the college of her dreams.  For all the money he had, he told his younger son and his daughter—work for it, don’t count on me to bail you out, while he’d spent hours making sure that his eldest son could read.

And in the end, Jaime hadn’t even wanted the Boston Red Sox—not because they were a bad team, or because dad owned them, even, but because he wanted to do the thing that Cersei was going to get to do—even though she had sobbed for hours after getting rejected from Stanford—and _leave_.  He knew Boston, and he knew dad, and Tyrion, and he knew what he would get if he stayed, but sometimes, you need to do things that are new.  And besides, Addam was right.  Sometimes, you have to be your own person—especially when you’re young because if you don’t when you’re young who the hell will you be when you’re older, except full of pain and regrets and whatever the fuck thoughts you might have developed in your days of not being yourself.  Although, of course, this was perhaps what had led Addam to get arrested on suspicion of insider trading.

So Jaime signed on with the White Sox, even though they were the less loved of the Chicago teams, even though they offered him less money than the Red Sox, and even the Marlins, because they didn’t have much of a budget, but they had a lineup of greats that Jaime had spent the past five years of his life obsessing over—Arthur Dayne, Barristan Selmy, Gerald Hightower, not to mention Oswall Whent, Jonothor Darry, Lewyn Martell, and, of course, Rhaegar Targaryen, who had cropped up in every All Star game ever, or so it seemed. So Jaime had come to the Windy City and learned what it was like to be free. 

And it fucking sucked.  It was fucking rent checks (fucking Walder Frey couldn’t wait until _after_ the Series was over?  Motherfucker.), and watching as class-warfare waged through baseball, and falling in love with a girl who just didn’t love you as much as she should, because even Lyanna acknowledged that she _should_ love Jaime, even though she loved Rhaegar, and Cersei loved Rhaegar, and everyone loved Rhaegar, but what wasn’t there to love because he was a good guy, and Jaime certainly couldn’t begrudge everyone for loving him, could he? Jaime was the team puppy, and Rhaegar was a fully grown—really? this was the metaphor he was choosing? Because fuck that.  Just fuck it.

Fuck it all.  That had been the tune that Jaime had been playing all game, because really, just fuck it.  Fuck dad, fuck Cersei, fuck Tyrion, fuck Rhaegar, fuck Addam, fuck Lyanna, (don’t fuck Brienne, because she’s had it rough and that’s just not nice), fuck _everyone on the fucking team_ because they were going to lose and what if Jaime never made it to the Series again, and the one time, they fucking blow it because Rhaegar and Jon-O can’t fucking hit the fucking ball? Because seriously, just fuck that.

He knows Oz isn’t going to hit it either, because Oz isn’t the strongest hitter—he’s still not sure why Merryweather put him on third and didn’t bury him somewhere else in the lineup, but that’s his fucking call, he supposes.

And when they fucking lose this game, Jaime’s going to write Rhaella a strongly worded email from the plane about who the fuck she chooses to manage this fucking team, because _fuck it_.

* * *

“Another Goose-egg for the White Sox, and we’re off to the sixth.”

“Now, I have a question for you, Mance.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Say you’re Rhaella Targaryen, and you’re watching your team fall apart—what do you think you would do.  Make your son sit it out, or make him keep playing?  Which do you think would destroy the morale more?”

“Honestly, I’d just switch-hit him wherever possible.  He’s not getting a piece of any pitch right now, but he’s still a fine runner.  Switch-hit him with one of your support team, then let him run it out on base.  That said, when he’s on his game, he’s one of the best hitters in the league, so you are risking that he won’t handle it and turn it back around.”

“Of course, we all know who wears the pants on the Sox’ managerial team, and Rhaegar’s going to hit even if Rhaegar perhaps shouldn’t be at bat.”

* * *

Mace strikes Westerling out, and Jaime shares a look with Gerry.  At least Mace is carrying this shit, and Jaime supposes that it’s because he knows that he can’t very well fuck up their chances.  Mace’s always better when the pressure’s off, for some reason. 

Addam hated Mace when he came out a few months ago. They’d been at Little Three Happiness (another one of Elia’s suggestions) after the game and Mace had said something stupid—Jaime couldn’t even remember what—and Addam had snapped, and Jaime had had to drag him out because he was _not_ going to get in the middle of a fight.  The last time he’d gotten in the middle of a fight, it had been between Addam and Robert, and, even though he now wished he’d broken Robert’s face instead of intercepting the punch that Addam had thrown at him…well…it wasn’t an experience he’d like to repeat, that was for fucking sure. 

The funny thing about it was that he’d always been there to take care of Addam, when Addam had gotten into trouble.  He had always chocked it up to being a big brother—when Addam was an only child, and didn’t have anyone to look out for him.  Jaime felt like he was programmed to look after people. 

Jaime had spent most of their childhood trying to make Cersei—always so serious, always with the weight of the world and father’s expectations on her shoulder—laugh.  He’d only been halfway to successful, and, were it not for the fact that Tyrion were drinking away with her, he would probably have been fine with her sneaking a beer into the game.  She was, after all, entitled to some liquid relaxation, after all the shit that had happened with Robert.  She deserved to smile, and let it all fall away, because even if she liked Georgetown—and she did like Georgetown.  He could see it in her those green apple eyes when she talked about Model Congress—there’s nothing quite like getting rejected from a school because you’re good enough, and rich enough, but the school gets offended that dad didn’t even try to buy you in.

It was a thought that gave him pause as he sends Greyjoy’s hit to Gerry—even though it makes it there at the same time as Royce and so doesn’t get him out.  What did it say about his life that he expected his dad to fix all his problems—that Cersei and Tyrion expected the same things.  Obviously, this was wrong.  Obviously, they shouldn’t count on daddy dearest (fucking Japan?  Really?) to buy them college or baseball teams or whatever to make them successful.  That was precisely the ethos that Tywin Lannister abhorred in people like Rickard Stark or Jon Arryn, who just sort of let their kids fly blind through life. Lyanna and her brothers sure as fuck flew blind through life.  She was proud of it, grateful for it.  But given that his team was on the South Side of Chicago, and every day he passed through the lives of the less affluent, the poor, the people who worked hard and got nothing for all their shit—well, it made Jaime even prouder of his choice.  He felt like a dick for saying it, for even acknowledging it, but playing for the side of Chicago that no one paid any attention to—except to knock it, or talk about crime rates or whatever…it made him feel good about himself, like he was doing the right thing, giving the right people hope.

Of course, it didn’t help that that hope was about to get utterly fucked because Mace couldn’t fucking pitch better than Jon and Royce had scored.

Not, of course, that it fucking mattered. 

Because they were going to lose anyway. 

Jaime hated losing.  He’d always hated losing.  It was why he and Addam had made such a good team.  Addam never lost, and Jaime never lost and so they could always count on each other to have eachother’s back.

 _I should be in Boston_ , he thinks bitterly as he catches Frey’s pop fly.

* * *

“Yohn Royce scoring for the Phillies.  Second run of the night, Royce is really on fire.” 

“And the Phillies are drinking it up.  They’ve been playing steadily, cautiously.”

“Of course, they’re playing a largely defensive game.  After the past few nights, they know that the Sox are scrambling.  Let them fall in on themselves and get a few runs in and the Series is clinched.”

“Of course, that all depends on if Jaime Lannister continues his steady progression across the bases.  If he makes it to third this time around, I’d say that it’s a pretty safe bet that he’ll get home at some point.”

“Lannister is playing a very good game, but he’s just one member of the team.  If the entire _team_ were to pick back up, well now.  That would be different.  But at the moment, he’s the only one with a significant sign of an energetic turnaround.  At the moment, the rest seem to be working hard, but not getting any payoff…”

* * *

Arthur hits the first pitch sent his way, and Jaime’s heart leaps with the sound.  He sends it deep into center field, right past Bracken’s outstretched arm, and Arthur makes it all the way to second before the ball makes it back to the infield. 

For the first time all night, Jaime’s mind is focused wholly on baseball, on Arthur, standing there with a casual lead off second with a broad grin on his face.  Arthur’s on base.  Arthur hit a pitch.  Arthur’s back.  Jaime keeps his eye on Arthur as he begins his practice swings, ready to drive Dayne home if Lew can’t.

Two pitches in, Lew sends the ball streaking between second and first and Arthur takes off and, without even looking at the ball, rounds third and goes, goes, goes.  Jaime’s frozen to the spot as Arthur pelts as fast as he fucking can towards home and a speck of white passes into the right corner of Jaime’s field of vision and Tarbeck fucking fumbles it and Arthur’s home and the stadium explodes with joy.  Jaime raises his fist and Arthur bumps it.

“You, sir,” Jaime smiles.

“If you dick it up, I’ll hunt you down,” Arthur replies, his voice serious, but his eyes dancing with delight.

“Hell, I’ll hand myself over,” Jaime replies.

“Don’t miss a pitch.  You’re giving us hope.”

What now?

Jaime cocked his head, but Arthur had turned towards the dugout, and his teammates who were waiting to shower him with joy and praise and the promise of every free drink he could imagine come the end of the game.

What did he mean, he was giving them hope?  Sure, he’d had some base-time, and sure he was playing pretty well (really fucking well, but he wasn’t going to dwell on that because dwelling on that would make it all go to shit, and he didn’t think he could handle the way he was playing going to shit on top of all the rest of the other fucking shit in his life) but—giving them hope?  That’s what Rhaegar did.  That’s what Arthur did.  That’s not what puppy-dog Jaime (oh god, that fucking metaphor) did.  Jaime just played.  And he played his best.  And they didn’t get too mad at him when he fucked up because he was the rookie and he was nineteen, and he didn’t know what the hell was going on with his life.

But now, bat in hand, leaning over home and ready for whatever Tarly threw at him, was he giving them hope?  The team? The fanbase? That was a little too much pressure.

No, that was a lot too much pressure, and but if he fucking thought about it, it would overwhelm him, kind of like if he thought about Lyanna he’d want to—

His bat strikes leather and the ball goes whizzing into right and Jaime takes off, Pycelle waving him on to second and he goes and he’s on second and Lew made it to home and Jaime’s heart is pounding in his throat and he’s glad that his ears have shut off because if they were on, he was sure that he would miss the sound of his own heart.  He’s always liked the sound of his own heart.  It’s always there, when nothing else is, when it’s just Lyanna, falling asleep half naked in his car, or his father walking out of the kitchen without a word after having torn up the Red Sox contract, or the locker room when Rhaegar tells them about Elia. 

Gerry’s ball is shooting right to Royce and Jaime scoots back to second as quickly as he can, because he’s not so reckless as to try and make it past Royce.  When the ball is safely back in Tarly’s hand, he takes a few steps off base, then a few more, then fuck it, he’s stealing third, because he’s annoyed he didn’t get to move forward at the last hit, and he slides in and sees the ump’s arms swinging him safe and his ears turn back on.  He looks across the diamond to Gerry, who gives him the thumbs up, then turns to Barristan, at bat, and gives him a look that he hopes conveys _get the ball out of the fucking in-field_. 

Barristan promptly complies, the ball heading deep into left, and Jaime makes it home easily accepting Brynden’s high-five with joy.  He turns around.  Gerry’s on third now, and Barristan’s on first, and they’re only losing by one now and Jaime gives them hope?

“Nice,” says Arthur, offering Jaime his fist to bump.

“Just going to school on your…whatever,” Jaime shrugs and pours water into his mouth.

“Yeah.  Sure.”  Jaime settles on the bench next to Arthur to watch. 

Brynden’s hit is a modest one, and Gerry doesn’t move because it’s a little too close for comfort.  Barristan’s on second, and the bases are loaded going into the top of the lineup and Jaime can’t breathe, because Jon-O and Rhaegar are sucking this game and all he wants is to be neck and neck.  Can they please be neck and neck?

An image shoots through his mind, and he almost groans because he’d been doing so well—the image—imaginary, of course, because god he wished it were a memory—of Lyanna sitting on his lap, in nothing but that small white bra, her neck entwined with his as she kisses her way across his shoulder, and he can’t move because the sensation sends tremors through him.  Great.  Now he’s going to get turned on by shoulders.

He wonders again if Lyanna’s watching the game.  If she’s hoping that Jon-O and Rhaegar both break their strike-out streak and make it home, like Arthur, like Jaime.

He wonders if she’s on the phone with Ashara, squealing over Arthur’s brilliance and saying non-chalantly, “Oh, Jaime confessed his love for me,” and Ashara going still and then demanding that she tell her more so that she’s not even paying attention when the Sox win or lose the match.

No.  Lyanna wouldn’t do that.  She wasn’t the sort to talk about shit like that.  He’d had to practically wrestle it out of her to make her admit to loving Rhaegar—though that might have been because he was married—and it had taken her ages to open up about stupid fucking what’s-his-fuck who she dated through high school and who left her after a month at college.  Lyanna took love seriously.  And, even if she got belligerently drunk, or hooked up with half of the math club, she knew that love and sex were different and that one merited talking about as often as possible and that the other was intensely private.

She was like Jaime that way.

And fuck, why was he fucking thinking about her again?  Just because she was…no.  He needed to not do this.  He really needed not to do this, because he was not opening himself up to that level of emotional fuckery during this game.  Not when Jon-O struck out, again, and when Rhaegar looked stricken, as though he’d been hoping for some of everyone else’s capacity to hit the ball to rub off on him.  Because if he opened himself up to this emotional fuckery, he’d start whimpering (god, that puppy imagery needed to get out of his head.  _Now_.) and it wouldn’t matter if he was playing the best game of his life right now, or if he gave hope to the team, because he’d start draining their hope away from them with all haste, curling up in a little ball and moaning “why won’t she love me?”

No.

Not that bad.  He wouldn’t be that bad.

But he might buy himself a Jack Daniels at the airport with the fake ID that Arthur had gotten him and drink himself to sleep.

Because the fact of it was it was completely _fair_ for her not to want him.  He knew that.  He knew that she couldn’t help if she liked him a lot, and that she wanted maybe to be with him, but she wasn’t sure, because she didn’t love him the way that she loved Rhaegar—Rhaegar who was striking out, when Jaime had been on base at every at-bat—but she liked him more than she liked other idiots she liked and she didn’t want to fuck up a friendship.  It was _fair_.  Fuck, if he hadn’t known how he felt about her, he’d be cautious too.  He and Lyanna were both like that: impulsive in almost every way, but…not necessarily with love.  Love was too important for impulse.

But despite all that, or maybe, because of all that, it fucking _hurt._ Hurt to open yourself up to that, to loving someone who might not love you and telling them anyway because it hurt more to say nothing and then being left with the worst possible answer: maybe.

Maybe was the cruelest answer.  Because it didn’t mean yes, and it didn’t put you out of your misery.  It left you in limbo, wondering if you maybe shouldn’t have brought it up at all.

Oz’s hit sends Gerry home and they’ve tied—actually tied—and Arthur’s up at bat and you can practically feel everyone’s excitement.  Will they take the lead?  Could they take the lead?  It’s Arthur, and Arthur hits like no one else in baseball.

Arthur’s ball goes into shallow left, and, though Barristan scores, Arthur’s out at first and the inning’s over.  But it doesn’t matter.  _We’re winning._

* * *

“Oh my sweet Jesus, what an upset!  I can I don’t even know what to say.  Arthur Dayne just flew in and saved the day for the White Sox!”

“Arthur Dayne seems to have remembered that he’s the strongest hitter in baseball, the best since Babe Ruth, or Lou Gehrig.”

“And what a turnaround he gave the Sox.  With Dayne, Martell, Lannister, Hightower, and Selmy all scoring, the White Sox are now up five to four, heading into the seventh inning.”

“And, unsurprisingly, we see that the Phillies have turned to the bullpen.  Tarly, who has put on a great show up till now, is going to rest out the rest of the game, while Redwyne warms up to take the mound in the seventh.”

* * *

And there it was.  He couldn’t not think about it anymore.

Because it hurt.  It hurt so much, that even pretending that it didn’t hurt hurt.  It hurt his pride—which probably deserved it, honestly, as did his ego—but it also hurt the part of him that felt normal.  The part that he assumed other people knew how to understand, the part of him that wasn’t Tywin Lannister’s oldest son, but rather, the part that was just human in some deliciously painful way.  The part of him that tried to do the right thing, even when the right thing was hard and when the right thing would hurt him more than help him.  The part that came from loving other people more than himself.

He’d met Lyanna less than a year ago.  No time at all, really.  He’d known Brienne only slightly longer, but he was living with her, so it wasn’t that fair a comparison.  He’d met Lyanna through baseball—through Arthur, who’d just come in from the Yankees and whose little sister was one of Lyanna’s closest friends.  And he and Lyanna, close in age, she just starting her second quarter at UChicago, he having just moved out to Chicago to get a feel for the town before he started play later that spring.  She’d taken him to some parties, introduced him to friends his own age, let him feel young, and free, and wild like he never had before.

And yet steady.  Always steady.  It was a wholly new sensation.  Because with Lyanna Stark, you had to be steady.  She was too wild—she always said so, and he agreed.  She drank, she smoked, she didn’t say no to drugs when they were offered, and she followed baseball, so what did it all matter.  She listened to music on big headphones that covered her big floppy knit hat, and got annoyed at English Majors who smoked outside of classroom buildings and who complained about how everyone idolizes Twain too much just because they can complain and complaining makes them look smart.  Lyanna hated them for it.  Called them fucking pretentious.  “It’s easier to complain than to accept,” Lyanna had ranted to him once over some spiced latte or another.  “Can’t they just fucking accept that he’s good at what he does?  I mean, for fuck’s sake, they don’t even know how to write half so well, and they’ve got the gall to complain?  Stupid fuckers.”  And Jaime—who had tried reading Twain in High School but hadn’t gotten past three chapters of _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ because dialect on top of the letters moving around in his head had undone him.

Lyanna read all the time.  She read as much as Jaime played baseball.  And he loved it.  Because listening to her talk about Melville, or Dickens, or Tolstoy made him grin like a maniac.  She made the stories sound so much more vivid than him trying to read to himself.  As vivid as Cersei when she dolled up for Robert—or whomever she would date now that she was done with Robert—or as vivid as Tyrion’s laughter when he’s watching _Archer_ or as vivid as the ball in Jaime’s glove.

She read literature, she read philosophy, she read things from so long ago that Jaime wondered why anyone bothered—only to have her swat him with her _very_ heavy Greek History textbook and explain to him exactly why he should care…though for the life of him he couldn’t remember the argument because he’s been laughing too hard and all he could remember was the steeliness of those grey eyes and how _god_ he wished he were anywhere near as smart as she was because if he were he might even be good enough for her.

He knew he shouldn’t think about it that way.  But it was hard not to feel that way when Reyne was knocking in a three-run homer and the entire stadium was groaning and the fact that you’ve stolen two bases this game, and scored one run, and apparently are the hope of the team doesn’t matter because you’re not fucking good enough, and all the horrible things swirling around in your head mean that you’re not fucking good enough.  (He sees Gerry, Rhaegar and Merryweather head to the mound again, and he hopes to god they put Will on.)

Not a good enough son, not a good enough brother, not a good enough friend, not a good enough teammate, not a good enough person for Lyanna Stark to realize that she’d be the happiest if she could only love you, and not a good enough person to let that fact go, let her make her own choices, because god, letting go of someone you’re in love with hurts like flaming hell and hurts worse than losing your first World Series.

Maybe he should drink with Tyrion after the game and talk about the horrible ways in which you could lose women.  And Cersei, he supposes, because it would be unfair to exclude her after all the shit that went down with Robert.  He wonders who would win.  Probably Tyrion.  At least dad didn’t drive Lyanna away from him.

Though of course, dad would have considered it base treachery to date a Stark.  Not because of the Starks.  They were fine people.  But because of the fucking Yankees.  Dating the daughter of the guy who owned the Yankees—on top of playing for the White Sox…Dad would probably cut him out of the will.  Not that he cared about baseball or anything.  It was the fact that he saw Jaime’s signing on with a different team as a betrayal—fuck him.

And it would be worth it, of course.  For Lyanna.  Any of it would be worth it.

And that’s why it hurt so much.  Because she didn’t understand that.  She didn’t know what he’d give up just for her to love him.  And that her liking him was fine, and he’d be ok with that because losing her would be too much…but it would be a knife in him.  For a long time.  And he didn’t know if he had it in him to rip that knife out himself.

* * *

“I can hardly breathe right now, Varys.  The Phillies are back in the lead, but I think you will agree—the past two halves have shown that this game is up for grabs, and that neither the Phillies nor White Sox are giving up without a fight.”

“And with the Championship on the line, it’s nice to see this kind of game.  This is one for the history books.  And, honestly, after this series, if Dayne hasn’t clinched a spot in the Hall of Fame, I am going to retire and live out the rest of my days as a clown at children’s birthday parties.”

“Maybe you could do the Targaryen kids’ parties.  I bet the tie-in to baseball would get you going.”

“Do you think that Dayne won’t get put in the hall of fame and that I’ve just doomed myself to animal balloons and facepaint?”

“I wouldn’t count on anything at this point.  The past forty minutes have shown me that you can’t count on anything from these teams.”

* * *

He wonders sharply if this is what Cersei is going through, as he warms up on-deck.  He hopes it’s not, of course, because if it is he might be flying to Purdue instead of Boston and giving Robert a piece of his mind.  But he can’t help but wonder. 

She’s been dating Robert for years now.  Since High School, when—stereotypically enough—he played quarterback and she was a cheerleader.  She’d loved that stereotype, had been giddy with joy about it, and whenever dad had been out of town on business, or, really, whenever she’d felt like it, she’d used his account to take out a room and “study” at the Casterly Hotel near their place in Cambridge.  She’d told dad she studied better in a hotel, where she could nap at her leisure, there was wifi, but no brothers running around the house pretending to be dinosaurs or whatever it was that day to distract her from her work.  Really, she was just fucking Robert’s brains out, Jaime sends the ball to right field, but if dad ever realized this, he said nothing. 

He thinks they were in love at one point.  He knows it.  Because of the way that Cersei had been happy with the great buffoon, the way she had snuggled into his arms when they’d all been watching _The Dark Knight_ _Rises_ , the way that she had changed her plans for him when she changed her plans for nobody.  And Robert—Robert had loved her too.  He’d called her every day while they’d been on vacation, talking to her for hours about how his little brothers wouldn’t stop fighting, and asking when, when, _when_ he could see her again.  But somewhere it had gotten bitter—maybe during senior year, when it had been unclear if Robert and Cersei would end up near each other or not, then when they realized they wouldn’t but were too cowardly to actually break up—probably because they liked knowing that they would have someone to have phone sex with on any given night.

But Robert had found himself another cheerleader, and Cersei’s eyes had landed on Rhaegar when she’d flown out on dad’s business account to watch some of Jaime’s games last spring, and, altogether too much like Lyanna, she’d ended up not caring that he was married, that he loved his wife, that his children were adorable, that he was too old for her.  She’d gotten it into her head too that it was maybe-one-day-possible, just like Lyanna.  Jaime, of course, had never told her that she shared this with Lyanna.  He didn’t want them to hate each other.  Especially not if…

But it wasn’t going to happen.  Brienne had always warned him that it might not—when she was feeling particularly grouchy after a day dealing with the assholes at the law school.  When he’d made the mistake of mentioning that he might have a crush on Lyanna, Brienne had said that it was dangerously close to impossible and he should prepare himself for the worst.  Although, if he’d known she meant this bad, he might actually have paid attention.

* * *

“And the Phillies knew what they were doing putting Redwyne on the field.”

“We’re back to fast-halfs again, while the relief pulls in.”

“Lannister, of course, continuing his hitting streak of the game.  But with Hightower, Selmy, and Tully all out, it didn’t amount to much this time around.”

“And the Sox are putting Willem Darry on the mound now, pulling Tyrell back out.”

* * *

Maybe, and he likes this idea tremendously, he can irrationally blame his father for it for the rest of the night.  That might work out well.  Indeed, the concept of it makes him stand up a little taller and watch Will (thank god they put Will in) wind up and send a ball speeding past Frey.

He examines the possibility.

His father always told him he was the sort of man any woman would fall over for, that he wouldn’t have to work for the girl of his dreams, but that she would just, innately, want him.

Well, that was bullshit on many levels, and Lyanna would have fumed angrily at the thought that women were supposed to just fall into the lap of any man.  She’d have shouted at dad, and called him a horrible and sexist and stupid man.  And she’d have probably thrown her drink in his face, for good measure.  And Jaime would have laughed, because how could you not laugh at Lyanna throwing a vodka tonic in his dad’s face?

But, returning to the initial expectation, could he not just blame his dad for making this rejection hurt? That his dad had never warned him that it was possible that the woman of your dreams didn’t love you anywhere near as much as you wanted her to?  Or would that have hit too close to home?  Aunt Genna had once told him that mom hadn’t been nearly as in love with dad as he was with her.  Did he know that?  Did he care?  Would Jaime himself care if Lyanna did date him, but he knew that she couldn’t love him as much as she loved Rhaegar—not as wildly, not as get-in-my-bed-now-so-that-I-can-have-my-wicked-way-with-you?

Would he even want to date her if she was in love with Rhaegar more than with him?  Because that seemed like it would open himself up to even more pain than he was in now?

Or would he try and give her the chance to fall in love with him?

All this was a moot point, of course, as Tarbeck struck out, because it wasn’t like she’d end up wanting to magically date him after one night’s thought.

Or maybe she would.

That would be very like her…

He sighed and hopped lightly from foot to foot, eyes following the way that Mallister’s hit soared into left field bounced once, and into the stands, landing him squarely on second.  Jaime looked at Will, who shrugged, and Jaime knew from that shrug that the next batter would strike out.

He wasn’t wrong.

* * *

“And as we head into the bottom of the eighth, I think it’s worth noting that this is the first inning in since the second that the Phillies have not scored.”

“Darry is really shaping up to be a mighty fine closer.  He, of course, started off as a starter back when he was signed with the Mariners, but the White Sox didn’t need any more starters, so Merryweather switched him to a closer.”

“It does work out well.  Darry’s flaw in Seattle was always that he’d tire too quickly, that he didn’t have the endurance that a good starter needs.  But as a closer with two to three innings to play, he’s really shaping up to be the next Mariano Rivera.”

“Don’t say that too loudly, or Stark will be on Targaryen for more than one of her players after tonight.”

* * *

He decided blaming dad wasn’t going to work.  Because ultimately, the problem wasn’t dad.  It wasn’t even him, though he felt that way.  A lot.

It was Lyanna.

Lyanna, who’d gone and fallen in love with a married man.  Who’d decided that Rhaegar Targaryen was the one who she needed to be with.

How had she put it?  Because of course, she had tried to be nice about it.  “It’s not that I don’t like you, Jaime.  I do.  A lot.”  She’d looked away from him, out the window, across the quiet street between her dorm-room and the quad.  “But if Rhaegar Targaryen wanted me naked, in his bed, I wouldn’t even consider it.  I’d just go and fuck him until he was done, and then hold him as long as I could.  If you were to offer me the same thing.”  Jaime’s face had heated but she was still looking out the window, and didn’t notice it, “I’d have to think about it for a few minutes.  And that’s not to say I wouldn’t.  And that if I did, I wouldn’t enjoy it.  It’s just to say…it’s just to say I’m not one hundred percent sure that I would.”

Which was the stupidest thing, really, because she didn’t even fucking _know_ Rhaegar.  Rhaegar, who was clearly so in love with his wife that the concept of her being ill made him miss every pitch that he could have hit, and strike out at every at-bat during the game.  Even Jon-O had gotten a piece of a pitch, and he hadn’t hit anything for most of the game at this point, but Rhaegar still hadn’t because Elia’s not being a rock for him right now had shaken him down to his very soul.  She didn’t know that Rhaegar, the one who brought Rhaenys to practice, or who showed them videos of Aegon burping on his phone.  The one who was devoted.

She only saw, as Cersei had once put it, “the finest ass in all of baseball.”  She saw him from afar, even less developed than one of the characters in her books, because if he asked her what Rhaegar was like she wouldn’t be able to answer, but if he asked her about Ahab or whatever the fuck his name was in _Moby Dick_ , she’d have a speech about thirty minutes long about him.

Rhaegar was only a character to her.  And Jaime was a living, breathing man and of course she was hesitant, because love is crazy and scary and if you think about it too long, of course there’s the temptation to run away screaming—even if Jaime hadn’t, he still wasn’t entirely sure that he shouldn’t _want_ to.  And especially if it was loving your best friend (if he was her best friend.  She was certainly one of his—the first person he called if he ever had a problem, because Brienne was too often in the library, and Arthur always forgot to charge his phone) it felt like your world was at stake, because if you failed, you didn’t just lose love, you lost everything…

No matter what she had said, that it would be “Safer” to love him, “more reasonable” to love him, more “perfect in so many ways” to love him, he wasn’t entirely sure that was true, now that he thought about it as he got up to swing, hardly noticing what Lew was doing in the batter’s box.

Not because he wasn’t safe, reasonable, or perfect to love, or whatever.  More that loving a real person, someone who is already important in your life, and admitting that you need them more than you thought you did, and opening yourself up to failure and rejection and hurt is infinitely more dangerous than loving the image of some tertiary connection from afar.

In many ways, Lyanna was more cowardly than he was.  And if they did end up talking about this again, he might well mention it to her.

Yes, he may very well—

He froze, eyes on the diamond.  Bases loaded.  He looked at the scoreboard.  Two outs.

Well.

Fuck.

Fuck everything.

Fuck everything and then some.  And then, for good measure, un-fuck it and fuck it back up again.

And he was the hope of the team?  Oh god fucking dammit.

Come the fuck on.  Really?  Really this?  Because when he struck out, everyone would be so disappointed in him—so disappointed that he’d wish he was in Japan with Dad.

He realizes as he squares up over home that they’ve taken out Tarly.  He hadn’t noticed before, much to his own bemusement.  Redwyne is standing there, looking just about as terrified as Jaime feels.  

All right.  _Let’s get this shit over with then, shall we?_

He listens to his heart beat, watches as Redwyne winds up, his knee kicking high above his belt and Jaime knows because he knows this sort of thing that it will be the fastest pitch he’s had to hit all game but it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t matter because if it did matter he would fuck it up the way that everything was fucking up around him so this can’t matter, but if he thinks about it mattering, then it will matter and he needs it not to matter, he needs not to think about it because he hears Lyanna’s voice whispering in his ear “Don’t think like a loser, you big twit.  And don’t think about all this until it’s over, ok?  Or I’m not talking to you ever again.”

His bat connects with the ball with a crack louder than any he’s heard and he doesn’t even look in what direction he ended up hitting the ball because he’s running fast on Lew’s tail, determined to stay safe, hoping to god that Jon-O makes it home—that he hit it far enough that Jon-O can make it home and suddenly his ears turn back on and the roar of the crowd is insane and Lew’s slowing down before he reaches second, leaping for joy in the air and Jaime looks around wildly for the ball.  He sees Greyjoy just standing there, right beneath the stands, and sees some celebrating young woman holding the ball high in her hand and Jaime’s legs are taking him around the bases and he can’t believe it because he thinks he just put them up by one point.

He reaches home and the team surrounds him, and he can hardly believe what has just happened.

“You!” shouts Arthur, who is waiting for him just past the batter’s box.

“Hi,” Jaime says.

“You fuckin’ _dog_ , Lannister!” grinned Lew.

“Don’t go blowing it on me now,” he replied, trying to sound easy, though somehow the fact of moving his mouth hurts, the fact of interacting with humans when he’s been so trapped in his thoughts for the past few hours hurts.

He looks over at Cersei and Tyrion.  They’re both screaming at the top of their lungs now—their alcohol nowhere to be seen and Jaime wonders if maybe they have stopped drinking.  Although it’s possible that they just put their drinks down to cheer for him.

And it doesn’t matter that Gerry strikes out at his next at bat.  None of them care.  They just want to shut down the ninth as fast as possible.

* * *

“You know, it might be a good idea to retire from this, because I don’t think my heart can handle it.”

“You sound like a melodramatic thirteen year old, Mance.”

“You know, I might have been underestimating the melodrama of thirteen year olds, Varys.”

* * *

It’s not worth it, Jaime decides.  Not worth it in the slightest.

Because there’s no avoiding it now, he’s definitely playing the best game he’s ever played.  And he got there because everything in his life was falling apart.

And it’s not worth it, not worth his life explode every time he needs a perfect game.  Not worth it at all. 

He sees Reyne on second, Westerling on first and Royce walking angrily away from the batter’s box, having just struck out.  Jaime’s crouched low, ready to move in any direction because he is not going to let fucking Reyne past him.  No fucking way. 

There are maybe only two outs left in the game, and Jaime feels fire in his blood and no one, not even himself, not even his teammates, can take this game away from him now.

Dad may actively not watch him play by going to Japan, Cersei and Tyrion can drink their sorrows away, Frey may want his fucking rent check, Brienne might be paranoid about life, Addam might be in jail, the team might be falling apart with Rhaegar, and Lyanna may say maybe and that was all fine for tonight.  But it was not worth it in the long run.  Not worth the emotional agony of the past few days, fuck it, the past few _hours_ , just to have an excellent game.

He may have sold his sanity for this game.  But it would only be this game.  Because if he ever was having this much tearing at him again, he didn’t think he’d be able to take it.  Everything wanted a piece of him, and he only had so much left to give.

Hollard’s bat connects to the ball and it shoots into Jaime’s glove as if drawn by a magnet.  Jaime flicks it to Arthur before Reyne can tag up and it’s over, and the team descends upon him, the fans rush the field, the roar of the crowd deafens him so that he can’t hear the sound of his own heart anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I don't think it's ever fully/explicitly stated, here is each team's lineup and positions.
> 
> The Phillies:  
> 1) Dontos Hollard (Left Field)  
> 2) Victarion Greyjoy (Right Field)  
> 3) Edwyn Frey (Designated Hitter)  
> 4) Tarbeck (Catcher)  
> 5) Jason Mallister (Second Base)  
> 6) Jonos Bracken (Center Field)  
> 7) Reyne (First Base)  
> 8) Gawen Westerling (Third Base)  
> 9) Yohn Royce (Short Stop)  
> Pitchers: Randyll Tarly (Starter), Paxter Redwyne (Closer)
> 
> The White Sox:  
> 1) Jonothor "Jon-O" Darry (Center Field)  
> 2) Rhaegar Targaryen (Right Field)  
> 3) Oswell "Oz" Whent (First Base)  
> 4) Arthur Dayne (Second Base)  
> 5) Lewyn "Lew" Martell (Left Field)  
> 6) Jaime Lannister (Short Stop)  
> 7) Gerold "Gerry" Hightower (Third Base)  
> 8) Barristan Selmy (Catcher)  
> 9) Brynden Tully (Designated Hitter)  
> Pitchers: Jon Connington (Starter), Mace Tyrell (Relief), Willem Darry (Closer)
> 
> On an unrelated note, please let me know if you spot typos. I got to a point where I couldn't read this anymore, I edited it so much. (I'll probably go through in a couple of days to double check.)
> 
> Thanks for reading my brainbaby!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Second Half](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1803838) by [thelahey_parade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelahey_parade/pseuds/thelahey_parade)




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